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The Apollo missions that flew to the Moon during the 1960s were designed and controlled by what is now known as Johnson Space Center, the home of the famous "Mission Control." Moreover, the astronauts that flew to the Moon all lived in Houston. It would stand to reason, therefore, that as NASA gears up to return to the Moon, major elements of this program would likewise be controlled from the Texas metropolis that styles itself "Space City."

Times change, however. In recent months, the politically well-positioned Marshall Space Flight Center, in Huntsville, Alabama, has been quietly pressing leaders with NASA Headquarters for program management of mid- to large-size landers to the lunar surface, which would evolve into human landers. Sources indicated this effort was having some success.

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However, Texas legislators have now begun to push back. On Tuesday, both of Texas' senators (John Cornyn and Ted Cruz), as well as three representatives with space-related committee chairs (John Culberson, Lamar Smith, and Brian Babin), wrote a letter to NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine.

"We support NASA's focus on returning to the Moon and using it as part of a stepping stone approach to place American boots on the surface of Mars in the 2030s," the Texas Republicans wrote. "As NASA reviews solicitations for lunar landers, we write to express our strong support for the establishment of NASA's lunar lander program at the Johnson Space Center." The letter reminds Bridenstine of Houston's strong spaceflight heritage.

Commercial crew lesson

During the 1960s, Texas had considerable political clout. Native son Lyndon B. Johnson was vice president when President Kennedy said humans would go to the Moon, and he was president during most of the Apollo program development. More important still, a Houston Congressman named Albert Thomas led the House committee that oversaw NASA's budget and steered the agency's human spaceflight center to his hometown.

The influence of Texas' political clout over spaceflight waned in subsequent decades, and the Houston space center learned a painful lesson a little less than a decade ago. When the time came to establish a program office for commercial crew, Kennedy Space Center won out over Johnson, a somewhat curious decision, because this program was responsible for flying humans into space. This decision was attributed to a number of factors, but Florida Senator Bill Nelson's close relationship with the new administrator at the time, Charles Bolden, probably sealed the deal.

In the last decade, however, Texas has regained some of its political clout. Rep. Culberson now holds a similar position, in terms of writing NASA's budget in the House, that Thomas did in the 1960s. Cruz and Babin both chair subcommittees in the Senate and House that set spaceflight policy for NASA.

"Fortunately, I'm in the right place at the right time to protect Johnson Space Center to restore NASA to the glory days of Apollo and beyond," Culberson told Ars.

JSC advocacy

Speaking on background, a Senate source said the Texas delegation hopes to see more leadership from the management of Johnson Space Center. In recent years, the Senate source said, center directors in Alabama and Florida have been more vigorous and effective in advocating for their needs. The legislators believe the Houston center's new director, Mark Geyer, will be more assertive, while still working closely with headquarters.

The lunar lander program management issue is not the only one that NASA's human spaceflight centers are likely to contest this year. NASA headquarters is also managing development of the Gateway project in a lunar orbit, which astronauts will periodically visit. While Mission Control in Houston will certainly manage those flights, it is not entirely clear which center will manage development of the Gateway outpost, which consists of several modules built by NASA, international partners, and private industry.

A NASA spokeswoman, Kathryn Hambleton, said programmatic announcements for Gateway and the evolvable lunar lander programs are expected by the end of this calendar year.

They can manage the project all they like, but everyone knows that JPL is going to be handsomely paid for designing the lander.

Why do you assume that? The Apollo LM was built by Grumman, which at the time was based in Bethpage, NY. The Apollo CM was built by North American (later North American Rockwell), which was based in Downey, CA. JPL has an incredible record of building unmanned spacecraft, but none whatsoever for building manned spacecraft.

(I realized that "manned" and "unmanned" are problematic terms, but "crewed" and "uncrewed" seem a little unwieldy. So for these purposes, no gender specificity shall accrue to use of aforementioned words.)

They can manage the project all they like, but everyone knows that JPL is going to be handsomely paid for designing the lander.

Why do you assume that? The Apollo LM was built by Grumman, which at the time was based in Bethpage, NY. JPL has an incredible record of building unmanned spacecraft, but none whatsoever for building manned spacecraft.

(I realized that "manned" and "unmanned" are problematic terms, but "crewed" and "uncrewed" seem a little unwieldy. So for these purposes, no gender specificity shall accrue to use of aforementioned words.)

Man, I used to live near their campus in Bethpage. It was really cool to hear so many retired locals tell amazing stories of their work during the Apollo program. When I grew up, I really wanted to work there.......but in between a smaller dwindling scope of work at that campus and the fact they basically poisoned Long Island water with chemicals that are slowly leeching out and potentially giving people cancer/neurological issues (see recent lawsuits and reports from Army Corps of engineers and NYS DEC. The number of people with Multiple Sclerosis on my neighboring street was creepily high /end speculation), I moved on to greener pastures. Cool history though.

Any one remember when NASA was about pushing the limits of space exploration rather than pork barrel jobs program?

It is easy to look at it that way. However, the original contributors to the space program were not doing it for altruistic motives; as corporations, they had to make a profit in these endeavors. Only later did the rush for space contracts blossom in certain congressional districts.

Plus, "pork barrel jobs" also keep the institutional capacity that might be lost when talented engineers depart for other fields... My humble opinion, anyway.

Any one remember when NASA was about pushing the limits of space exploration rather than pork barrel jobs program?

Don't blame NASA for Congress.

If you're not happy with it, vote out the responsible (*snerk*) Republicans who just hide behind "doing my best for my constituents" while selling out the country in the process.

With that said, any picture claiming NASA's related contracts only involve one or the other, when taken as a whole, would be woefully incomplete. NASA gets used to perform a lot of pork barrel style deals. But don't diminish its actual accomplishments just over that. If anything, it makes it more remarkable how much NASA has accomplished, despite the interference and forced contractual obligations created by members of Congress only interested in (at best) pork barrel provisions (or at worst, even dirtier dealing).

This project will be several trillion dollars over budget and complete sometime in 2240.

Step right up! Get in line for the pork barrel goodies to be had with BACK TO THE MOON!, the latest boondoggle from those fine folks who brought you BUT HER E-MAILS !!! NO COLLUSION!!!! FAKE NEWS!!!! and SPACE CORPS!!!! This fine idea will fill the pockets of contractors to overflowing and never put an actual human on the moon in your lifetime, but think of the dreams it will inspire (as well as fatten those portfolios!) C'mon now, step right up!

Any one remember when NASA was about pushing the limits of space exploration rather than pork barrel jobs program?

No, because it's never been one but not the other for at least as long as I've been alive (I was alive for the Moon landings but have no memories of the first one). You understand why the Johnson Space Center is located where it is? There's a hint right there in the name.

How about doing a Commercial Cargo type competition but for a moon lander. NASA provides the requirements, funds prototypes from a dozen or so companies. Multiple rounds of competition follow to narrow it down to 3 Commercial Lunar Cargo contractors.

I mean it worked for Commercial Cargo and it appears to be working well for Commercial Crew. It wouldn't be inventing something out of whole cloth. They have a template that works.

If they'd defund SLS and use that money for landers and payloads I wouldn't give a crap where the program was located, at least they'd finally be building payloads. As long as SLS is sucking up all the funds though not much will happen with landers or anything else.

They can manage the project all they like, but everyone knows that JPL is going to be handsomely paid for designing the lander.

Why do you assume that? The Apollo LM was built by Grumman, which at the time was based in Bethpage, NY. The Apollo CM was built by North American (later North American Rockwell), which was based in Downey, CA. JPL has an incredible record of building unmanned spacecraft, but none whatsoever for building manned spacecraft.

(I realized that "manned" and "unmanned" are problematic terms, but "crewed" and "uncrewed" seem a little unwieldy. So for these purposes, no gender specificity shall accrue to use of aforementioned words.)

I'm just happy there's some discussion of NASA developing a human-scale lander for any world besides Earth. It probably can't be funded until SLS and Orion are cancelled to make room in the budget, but space fans have to find their slivers of optimism wherever they can when it comes to NASA's human exploration roadmap.

As much as I loathe MSFC, they really need a lunar lander program to retain any relevance as a propulsion development center for NASA. The commercial market is driving the development of heavy lift launch systems, large liquid rocket engines, and electric ion thrusters for satellites and other exoatmospheric spacecraft.

But a human-scale lunar lander, even if it's predominantly developed by Blue Origin, will depend on NASA as an anchor customer. It's reasonable for a NASA center to oversee its development, to the extent that an exceeding well-financed company like Blue Origin needs NASA's money enough to justify subjecting their development program to NASA management.

JSC will have no such existential crisis going forward, because as long as NASA has any intentions of maintaining an astronaut corps, there will be work for JSC. Blue Origin and SpaceX are not a threat to JSC's traditional turf.

That irony has always been there with the relationship between NASA and Texas. (I suggest reading “The Right Stuff”.)(Texas representatives also wanted a large particle accelerator built there.)For the Texas far right things are compartmentalized. Evolution is wrong. Global warming/climate change science is wrong. But NASA jobs help the state’s economy and it fits the America 1st patriotism.

That irony has always been there with the relationship between NASA and Texas. (I suggest reading “The Right Stuff”.)(Texas representatives also wanted a large particle accelerator built there.)For the Texas far right things are compartmentalized. Evolution is wrong. Global warming science is wrong. But NASA jobs help the state’s economy and it fits the America 1st patriotism.

Also, Texas isn't close to monolithic. At 26 mil people it's a smallish country by itself and not everyone is a knuckle dragging idiot, there's a lot of smart people, capable people here.

If they'd defund SLS and use that money for landers and payloads I wouldn't give a crap where the program was located, at least they'd finally be building payloads. As long as SLS is sucking up all the funds though not much will happen with landers or anything else.

You don't get it. The lander(when they finally get a crewed one) will be used with SLS. Cha ching!Edit- I should have prefaced my comment with '*The plan is...*'

They can manage the project all they like, but everyone knows that JPL is going to be handsomely paid for designing the lander.

Why do you assume that? The Apollo LM was built by Grumman, which at the time was based in Bethpage, NY. The Apollo CM was built by North American (later North American Rockwell), which was based in Downey, CA. JPL has an incredible record of building unmanned spacecraft, but none whatsoever for building manned spacecraft.

(I realized that "manned" and "unmanned" are problematic terms, but "crewed" and "uncrewed" seem a little unwieldy. So for these purposes, no gender specificity shall accrue to use of aforementioned words.)

Really? Manned and unmanned are problematic terms? They are terms that apply to both men and women. Its like mankind. Next you're going to tell me you use womyn, latinx, and humyn. Give me a break. 🙄Nobody assumes those terms mean men only. Screw NASA rules. This is just plain stupid.

If they'd defund SLS and use that money for landers and payloads I wouldn't give a crap where the program was located, at least they'd finally be building payloads. As long as SLS is sucking up all the funds though not much will happen with landers or anything else.

You don't get it. The lander(when they finally get a crewed one) will be used with SLS. Cha ching!

There is barely funding to get crews in space via SLS more than a couple times, which leaves no funds for landers unless there is a large cash infusion in NASA's budget to fund them, and that's pretty unlikely. No bucks, no Buck Rogers.

They can manage the project all they like, but everyone knows that JPL is going to be handsomely paid for designing the lander.

Why do you assume that? The Apollo LM was built by Grumman, which at the time was based in Bethpage, NY. The Apollo CM was built by North American (later North American Rockwell), which was based in Downey, CA. JPL has an incredible record of building unmanned spacecraft, but none whatsoever for building manned spacecraft.

(I realized that "manned" and "unmanned" are problematic terms, but "crewed" and "uncrewed" seem a little unwieldy. So for these purposes, no gender specificity shall accrue to use of aforementioned words.)

Really? Manned and unmanned are problematic terms? They are terms that apply to both men and women. Its like mankind. Next you're going to tell me you use womyn, latinx, and humyn. Give me a break. 🙄Nobody assumes those terms mean men only. Screw NASA rules. This is just plain stupid.

The term 'crewed vehicle' has been in use for quite some time. Stupid as you may deem it to be.

If they'd defund SLS and use that money for landers and payloads I wouldn't give a crap where the program was located, at least they'd finally be building payloads. As long as SLS is sucking up all the funds though not much will happen with landers or anything else.

You don't get it. The lander(when they finally get a crewed one) will be used with SLS. Cha ching!

There is barely funding to get crews in space via SLS more than a couple times, which leaves no funds for landers unless there is a large cash infusion in NASA's budget to fund them, and that's pretty unlikely. No bucks, no Buck Rogers.

How about doing a Commercial Cargo type competition but for a moon lander. NASA provides the requirements, funds prototypes from a dozen or so companies. Multiple rounds of competition follow to narrow it down to 3 Commercial Lunar Cargo contractors.

I mean it worked for Commercial Cargo and it appears to be working well for Commercial Crew. It wouldn't be inventing something out of whole cloth. They have a template that works.

The competitive milestone-based development model worked quite well for CRS but barely worked for Commercial Crew. SpaceX's ambitions for using Dragon for anything other than NASA ISS missions have been crushed. Boeing probably wonders why they ever bid on a fixed-cost contract to develop a crewed spacecraft for NASA.

A lunar lander program would fare much worse, because nobody is gullible enough to believe that a lunar lander developed to NASA requirements will be marketable to other customers. There's no existing commercial market for lunar surface downmass and no reason to believe that the economics of NASA's approach would facilitate the opening of new commercial markets.

How about doing a Commercial Cargo type competition but for a moon lander. NASA provides the requirements, funds prototypes from a dozen or so companies. Multiple rounds of competition follow to narrow it down to 3 Commercial Lunar Cargo contractors.

I mean it worked for Commercial Cargo and it appears to be working well for Commercial Crew. It wouldn't be inventing something out of whole cloth. They have a template that works.

The competitive milestone-based development model worked quite well for CRS but barely worked for Commercial Crew. SpaceX's ambitions for using Dragon for anything other than NASA ISS missions have been crushed. Boeing probably wonders why they ever bid on a fixed-cost contract to develop a crewed spacecraft for NASA.

A lunar lander program would fare much worse, because nobody is gullible enough to believe that a lunar lander developed to NASA requirements will be marketable to other customers. There's no existing commercial market for lunar surface downmass and no reason to believe that the economics of NASA's approach would facilitate the opening of new commercial markets.

I wouldn't say Space X's ambitions were 'crushed' so much as altered with their commitment to BFR.Commercial crew will give them valuable experience in managing a crew program on their own or partnered with NASA or other space programs. Boeing is free to follow up as well. The idea being that the Commercial Crew effort opens up opportunities for commercial/private enterprises to exploit LEO. We'll see if those opportunities get taken.

How about doing a Commercial Cargo type competition but for a moon lander. NASA provides the requirements, funds prototypes from a dozen or so companies. Multiple rounds of competition follow to narrow it down to 3 Commercial Lunar Cargo contractors.

I mean it worked for Commercial Cargo and it appears to be working well for Commercial Crew. It wouldn't be inventing something out of whole cloth. They have a template that works.

The competitive milestone-based development model worked quite well for CRS but barely worked for Commercial Crew. SpaceX's ambitions for using Dragon for anything other than NASA ISS missions have been crushed.

The politicians wanted it that way,that is why they changed the contract form.

The Cargo Dragon never got used for anything else either (as DragonLab). At least now they will become a dumping ground for the one-time-use Crew Dragon.

They can manage the project all they like, but everyone knows that JPL is going to be handsomely paid for designing the lander.

Why do you assume that? The Apollo LM was built by Grumman, which at the time was based in Bethpage, NY. The Apollo CM was built by North American (later North American Rockwell), which was based in Downey, CA. JPL has an incredible record of building unmanned spacecraft, but none whatsoever for building manned spacecraft.

(I realized that "manned" and "unmanned" are problematic terms, but "crewed" and "uncrewed" seem a little unwieldy. So for these purposes, no gender specificity shall accrue to use of aforementioned words.)

Really? Manned and unmanned are problematic terms? They are terms that apply to both men and women. Its like mankind. Next you're going to tell me you use womyn, latinx, and humyn. Give me a break. 🙄Nobody assumes those terms mean men only. Screw NASA rules. This is just plain stupid.

The term 'crewed vehicle' has been in use for quite some time. Stupid as you may deem it to be.

Yes. My research says 2006 or so. You know the reasons for that as well as I do and they're dumb. Most people seriously don't think man when saying mankind, manned, etc etc. Maybe the original etymology of the word was based around male dominance or something like that but it has been gender neutral for a long time. I can't get behind the change of terms that have no effect on anything other than offending someones sensibilities. I dont mind using other terms as interchangeable alternatives but labeling them offensive or restricting their use is crazy. Some of the terms are used simply because they are shorter.

If they'd defund SLS and use that money for landers and payloads I wouldn't give a crap where the program was located, at least they'd finally be building payloads. As long as SLS is sucking up all the funds though not much will happen with landers or anything else.

Except you know that any lander NASA approves will only be launchable as part of a SLS/Orion stack. The requirements will be written just so, and like Orion will come in too heavy for anything but SLS to lift.

"But BFR...!"

Let me stop you right there. Again, the requirements will be written such that only SLS/Orion will work. Doesn't matter what BFR will (eventually) do.